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| Briton Rivière The King Drinks 1881 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| John Evan Hodgson A Shipwrecked Sailor waiting for a Sail 1881 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"Hodgson was born in London but emigrated with his family to Russia in 1835 and subsequently worked in his father's import-export office in St. Petersburg. During this time he became fascinated by the Old Master paintings in the Hermitage, which inspired him to return to London in 1853 and enroll in the Royal Academy Schools. For his Diploma Work he depicted a sailor stranded on an unspecified island, with the ribs of the wrecked ship just visible in the background."
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| Edwin Long Nouzhatoul âouadat 1881 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema The Way to the Temple 1882 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"Alma-Tadema's Diploma Work is typical of the classical scenes which prompted Punch to refer to him as a 'marbellous painter.' A priestess sits in the portico of a Doric temple selling votive statuettes, while a partially revealed Dionysian procession passes behind."
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| Walter William Ouless Portrait of artist John Evan Hodgson 1884 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| William Blake Richmond Orpheus returning from the Shades 1885 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| John Loughborough Pearson Design for Truro Cathedral, Cornwall ca. 1887 drawing (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Marcus Stone Good Friends 1887 oil on panel (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Alfred Waterhouse Manchester Town Hall 1887 drawing, with watercolor (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"Alfred Waterhouse secured the job of designing Manchester Town Hall by winning a competition that had been held in stages between 1867 and 1868. The building campaign lasted for a decade. Thus this large watercolour dated 1887, given as his Diploma Work, is not a design for but a record of the completed building. One of the most brilliant architectural watercolourists of his generation, Waterhouse – with the help of draughtsmen on his staff – often worked up drawings like this one for presentation."
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| Luke Fildes A Schoolgirl 1887 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| William Quiller Orchardson On the North Foreland 1890 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Hubert von Herkomer On Strike 1891 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Henry Moore Summer Breeze in the Channel 1893 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Henry Woods Il Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo, Venice 1895 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"Woods studied art in his native Lancashire before moving to London, where he took up a scholarship at the South Kensington Schools in 1865. By 1870 he had progressed from magazine illustration to oil paintings accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy. He first visited Venice in 1876 and was so struck by the city that he settled there permanently."
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| Valentine Cameron Prinsep La Révolution 1896 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| John Singer Sargent An Interior in Venice 1899 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"Sargent spent the summer of 1899 as a guest of the American expatriates Daniel and Ariana Curtis in the Palazzo Barbaro, Venice. The Curtises enjoyed entertaining artists and writers, including Henry James, who used the Palazzo as a setting for his novel The Wings of the Dove (1902). In his Diploma Work, Sargent portrays the couple, their son Ralph and his wife Lisa in their grand salon. He originally intended this painting as a gift for Mrs Curtis (whom he nicknamed 'the Dogaressa') but she declined it, as she thought it made her look too old and because she believed that her son was not depicted with appropriate decorum."
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| Edwin Austin Abbey Lute Player 1899 oil on canvas (diploma work) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
– quoted texts adapted from Royal Academy notes